In Melbourne a few weeks ago, two boys were withdrawn from Brighton Grammar and a number of others were disciplined for posting pictures of girls on Instagram together with sexual innuendo and disparaging comments about the girls’ appearance. People were invited to vote for the “Slut of the Year”.

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In Brisbane, there is ongoing controversy about the company Wicked Campers and its lurid campervans which are decorated with sexually offensive slogans along the lines of “Save a Tree, eat a Beaver” and “Boobs confirm that men can concentrate on two things at once”.

Are the people taking and posting the photographs of Australian schoolgirls and the people rating them girls or women? I doubt it. They’re men.

How would the men who use this website react if one of the girls they were asked to rate was their daughter?

How did the boys from Brighton Grammar come to think that it was acceptable to talk about girls in the way they did? Where did they get their attitudes towards women?

Why don’t we see similar derogatory slogans about men? Why don’t schoolgirls post pictures of boys on Facebook or Instagram and ask them to vote for Creep of the Year, or make innuendo about a boy’s sexual proficiency?

Are the people who invent the slogans on Wicked Campers’ vans women? Again I doubt it. Why do the owners think it’s ok to represent women in this way?

Women play a central role in men lives. Women give birth to male babies and raise them to maturity. Men marry women and have daughters with them. Most men love their mothers, wives and daughters and would do all in their power to protect them.

However, it seems that despite the obviously central role of women in men’s lives, many men see no contradiction in, on the one hand admiring and respecting their mothers, wives and daughters while, at the same time, exploiting other women for sexual gratification.

Since the 1970s, feminist writers have argued that pornography, which is overwhelmingly produced and consumed by men, is a means by which men maintain patriarchal power over women: “Treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen.”

Men’s interest in maintaining patriarchy is strong. So strong that in many cases it overrides the relatively respectful relationships they have with their mothers, wives and daughters.

For many men, respect for women is superficial. They may respect the women who are closest to them, but other women are different. They don’t see the contradiction in respecting one’s mother or sister, but sexually objectifying women in general.

This problem has deep social and cultural roots.

In nineteenth century Australia, colonial society was based on a patriarchal social order in which women were reduced to one of two stereotypes: either “damned whores” or “God’s police”, to use Anne Summers’ well-known formulation.

Things haven’t changed much in the 21st century.

It would seem the “damned whores” appellation is alive and well. It’s obviously how the Brighton schoolboys viewed girls, and how the owners of Wicked Campers view women.

What is to be done?

Men need to realise that their interests and women’s interests intersect. Despite what popular culture often tells us, the relationship between men and women doesn’t have to be a battle of the sexes.

For example, many men would have an interest in their daughters being free of sexual harassment at school, in the workplace, or in public places. They would have an interest in their daughters and wives receiving equal pay and work opportunities. They would have an interest in seeing that their wives, mothers and daughters have access having to the best possible health care.

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It is in these relationships and intersecting interests that the possibilities for changes to attitudes towards women exists.

Relations between men and women need to be constructed not on the basis of hierarchy but on mutuality.

Many men only experience women in the roles of mothers or objects of sexual desire. Many men work in all-male environments: in the military, on building sites, in professional sports for example. Many young men go to all-boys schools and live in all-male colleges at university. The experience of such men with women and girls is limited.

We need to broaden the experiences men have with women by integrating the sexes more closely in everyday life. We need to break down occupational and other barriers which segregate the sexes from each other.

If the only experience men have of women is as either madonnas or whores, then they’ll continue to exploit women and girls. Ending this exploitation can come only from breaking down the barriers which keep men and women apart.